Psalm 144

1 Blessed be the Lord my rock,  who teaches my hands for war and my fingers for battle;2 My steadfast help and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer, my shield in whom I trust,  who subdues the peoples under me.3 O Lord, what are mortals that you should consider them;  mere human beings, that you should take thought for them?4 They are like a breath of wind;  their days pass away like a shadow.5 Bow your heavens, O Lord, and come down;  touch the mountains and they shall smoke.6 Cast down your lightnings and scatter them;  shoot out your arrows and let thunder roar.7 Reach down your hand from on high;  deliver me and take me out of the great waters, from the hand of foreign enemies,8 Whose mouth speaks wickedness  and their right hand is the hand of falsehood.9 O God, I will sing to you a new song;  I will play to you on a ten-stringed harp,10 You that give salvation to kings  and have delivered David your servant.11 Save me from the peril of the sword  and deliver me from the hand of foreign enemies,12 Whose mouth speaks wickedness  and whose right hand is the hand of falsehood;13 So that our sons in their youth may be like well-nurtured plants,  and our daughters like pillars carved for the corners of the temple;14 Our barns be filled with all manner of store;  our flocks bearing thousands, and ten thousands in our fields;15 Our cattle be heavy with young:  may there be no miscarriage or untimely birth, no cry of distress in our streets.16 Happy are the people whose blessing this is.  Happy are the people who have the Lord for their God.

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Isaiah 5: 1-13

The Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard

5Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard:My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.
2 He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines;he built a watch-tower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it;he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

3 And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah,judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it?When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?

5 And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard.I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured;I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.
6 I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel,and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting;he expected justice, but saw bloodshed;righteousness, but heard a cry!

Social Injustice Denounced

8 Ah, you who join house to house, who add field to field,until there is room for no one but you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land!
9 The Lord of hosts has sworn in my hearing:Surely many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant.
10 For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield a mere ephah.*

11 Ah, you who rise early in the morning in pursuit of strong drink,who linger in the evening to be inflamed by wine,
12 whose feasts consist of lyre and harp, tambourine and flute and wine,but who do not regard the deeds of the Lord, or see the work of his hands!
13 Therefore my people go into exile without knowledge;their nobles are dying of hunger, and their multitude is parched with thirst.

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Matthew 22: 23-33

The Question about the Resurrection

23 The same day some Sadducees came to him, saying there is no resurrection;* and they asked him a question, saying,
24Teacher, Moses said, If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.
25Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother.
26The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh.
27Last of all, the woman herself died.
28In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her.

29 Jesus answered them, You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
30For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels* in heaven.
31And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God,
32I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is God not of the dead, but of the living.
33And when the crowd heard it, they were astounded at his teaching.